Apricot Jam: And Other Stories (14 page)

This could not be
,
it was a lie!
Or maybe . . . somewhere across the ocean?
But
Pava
kept insisting it was so, claiming that she knew the Russian nunneries were nothing more than lies and hypocrisy.

It was just sickening to think about going into the Komsomol: Would they sneer at things in the same way? Would they all be like
Pava
?

But Auntie Hanna kept insisting and trying to impress on her:
“
You
’
ve got to understand that the Komsomol
’
s your only choice. Otherwise, you might as well hang yourself.
”

Yes, her path in life was becoming more and more narrow and constricted . . . Was it really leading her to the Komsomol?

Late one evening when no one was watching, Nastya took out the little icon of Christ and gave it one final and penitent kiss. Then she tore it into tiny pieces so that no one could tell what it had been.

January 21 was the first anniversary of Lenin
’
s death. The Council of People
’
s Commissars of Ukraine was in charge of their orphanage, and
Vlas
Chubar
himself came to the commemorative ceremony. The stage was draped in red and black, and before a huge portrait of Lenin, the little
Mishkas
and
Mashkas
entering the Young Pioneers were being renamed Kim,
Vladlen
,
Marxina
, and
Oktyabrina
. The kids beamed with joy to have their names changed and kept repeating their new ones.

As for Nastya, she took the Komsomol oath.

She stayed at the orphanage until spring had passed, but there was still no job open for her there. So Auntie Hanna managed to find her a place running a tiny reading room in the village of Okhochye. Nastya, who was not yet sixteen, took the little bundle containing all her possessions and went there in a cart, jolting all the way, via the regional town of Taranovka.

She found her
“
library
”
was a single, dirty room in a hut shared with the Okhochye Village Soviet. She tucked up her skirt and set to washing the floor. She had to wipe down or wash everything and hang the portrait of Lenin—along with a rifle with no bolt that for some reason belonged in the room—on the wall. (It was just at this point that the chairman of the regional executive committee, the tall Arandarenko with jet-black hair, popped in and
oohed
and
aahed
, praising her for the way she had cleaned up the room.) The little reading room carried a few pamphlets and the newspaper
The Village Poor.
A couple of peasants might drop by to have a look at the paper (and, at the same time, how could they keep from carrying it off to roll cigarettes?), but no one ever picked up any of the pamphlets.

So now, where was she supposed to live? The chairman of the village soviet, Roman Korzun, told her:
“
It
’
s not safe for you to go off too
far,
someone might take a shot at you.
”
He found a spot for her in part of a house requisitioned from a deacon, quite near the village soviet.

It took a while for Nastya to understand why it was dangerous: now she was a dyed-in-the-wool part of Soviet power. Then came St. John
’
s Day, the festival of the church in Okhochye; there was to be a fair, and a lot of visitors were expected. Their Komsomol cell had rehearsed an anti-religious play for the holiday, and they put it on in a large shed. They also sang a little ditty:

French kisses only make me bored,

I
’
m not the Virgin Mary.

I won
’
t give birth to Christ the Lord,

So let us both be merry.

This wrung her heart. It was a humiliation, a disgrace.

Even more: the whole family from the deacon
’
s house was now looking at Nastya with hostility, and she didn
’
t dare explain things and be honest with them. That, maybe, would make things even worse. She went quietly past the house to her own entryway. But Roman lived here as well, and though he was over thirty, he was a bachelor or perhaps divorced. He told her that he was taking the first room; it led into a second, where Nastya would live.

The problem was that there was no proper door between the rooms, just a curtain.

Yet Nastya felt quite safe. Roman Korzun was a grown-up and he was her boss, so she would go to her room, lie down on the bed, and read a book by the kerosene lamp. But only a day went by before he was grumbling:
“
I don
’
t like these city bitches. Every one of them acts like she
’
s still got her cherry.
”
On the third evening she was again lying on her bed reading. Korzun silently came up to the doorway, tore back the curtain, and rushed at her. He immediately pinned back both her arms and stopped her from crying out by covering her mouth with his burning lips.

She couldn
’
t move. Even more, she was utterly stunned. He was damp with sweat, disgusting. So, is this how it happens?

Roman saw the blood and was amazed: from a Komsomol girl? And he asked her forgiveness.

Now she had to wash it all off in the basin so the deacon
’
s family wouldn
’
t see.

But that same night he came back to enjoy himself once more, and then again, covering her with kisses.

Nastya felt as if someone had struck her over the head, and she had no strength to resist.

After that he no longer came to her; he would call her to his room every evening, and somehow she would meekly obey. He would keep her there for a long time, smoking a cigarette in the intervals.

It was during those same days that she heard something that made her blood run cold: syphilis was raging in Okhochye.

What if he had it?

But she dared not ask him directly.

How long could this go on, anyway? Korzun was masterful and insatiable. Early one morning when it was already light, while he slept and she was awake, she caught sight of the hateful little secretary of the village soviet looking in the window. He had probably come to summon Korzun for some emergency, but he had already seen what was going on—and seen that she saw him—and he only smirked in a vile and filthy way. He even stood there for a time to have a good look and then went away without knocking.

The secretary
’
s fiendish grin pierced and cut through all the stupor and numbness in which Nastya had spent these weeks.
It wasn
’
t just that he would now spill this story all through the
village,
his grin alone was a disgrace!

She kept fidgeting, but Roman wouldn
’
t wake up. She stealthily gathered her few things into the same small bundle she had brought here and quietly went out. The village was still asleep. She went to the road to the region
’
s main town, Taranovka.

The morning was still and mild. The cattle were being driven out to pasture. She could hear the crack of the herdsman
’
s whip, but not a single carriage was yet rumbling along the road, and there was nothing to raise the dust that lay like velvet beneath her feet. (It reminded her of that morning a few years back when she had made her trip to the monastery.)

She didn
’
t know where she was going and why. She knew only that she couldn
’
t stay in the village.

But she did know someone: Shura, the unmarried girl who carried messages for the regional executive committee. She went to Shura
’
s tiny room, burst into sobs, and told her everything.

Shura hugged her and wiped away her tears. Nastya thought: I
’
ll go straight to Arandarenko and tell him the whole thing.

Arandarenko didn
’
t even call her in, but he remembered her. He gave orders to have her taken to someone
’
s desk in the executive committee office, and she was given some papers and paid her wages.

Her surprise at his kindness didn
’
t last long. People in the office told her that he was a regular outlaw where women were concerned. This was how he worked: He would take one of the nurses from the hospital or a young teacher for a ride—in summer in a carriage with springs, in winter in a sleigh. His driver would race the horses into the steppe to someplace where there wasn
’
t a soul to be seen and then, while they raced along at full gallop, he
’
d spread the girl
’
s legs. That was how he liked it.

Nastya, too, didn
’
t have to wait long for her turn. (Anyway, how could she fight him off? And where else could she go with her little bundle?)
Smolyanoy
, the driver, called her in, gave her a pat on the shoulder, and gestured for her to follow him. And off they galloped! Lord, those horses flew like demons, and it seemed for certain they
’
d be thrown out of the carriage. The vicious Arandarenko with the forelock threw her on her back and twisted her arms over her head. Past his dangling forelock she could see the driver
’
s broad back—he never turned around once—and the clouds in the sky above.

A few days later Roman Korzun came to Taranovka, begging her to come back to him and promising to marry her. Nastya felt a wave of anger at him and scornfully turned him down. Then he threatened to kill himself.
“
What, a party member like you? No, you won
’
t do that.
”
Then he submitted an official paper demanding that the librarian return to the village—she was a deserter! The central executive committee refused his request. Korzun even called a meeting of the villagers and made them vote: Return our librarian! Nastya was very afraid they would send her back to Okhochye. (Thank God she hadn
’
t come down with the disease there.) But Arandarenko said no.

He ordered Nastya to pack her things and go to Kharkov for a two-month librarian
’
s course. He went along. He reserved a room with a cot for her for a few days.

And he would come to her. To this point she had only been unhappy, but now some new feelings were stirring inside her and she began to sense what might happen to her. Arandarenko had compliments for her:
“
You
’
re turning into a proper young tart. Your eyes sparkle, you
’
re lovely.
”

Then Arandarenko went back to Taranovka, and Nastya
’
s courses continued. She came back to Taranovka as a regular librarian. She was expecting Arandarenko to come to her, but he didn
’
t see her even once and seemed to have forgotten about her.

There was a drama society in the Komsomol club, and Nastya began attending in the evenings. They were putting on the Ukrainian play
Till the Sun Rises
and a new play about the class struggle, showing how the children of kulaks try to make children of poor peasants fall in love with them so as to
“
sneak their way into socialism.
”
One of the people in their drama society was Sashko Poguda—broad-shouldered and slim, with curly blond hair, and he could sing the Ukrainian song,
“
Something Fills Me with Sadness Today
”
so beautifully.

Nastenka began to like him more and more, in the real way, from her heart. Spring came, this one her seventeenth. Nastenka was happy to go out walking with him along the railway or across the fields. He began talking of marrying her, without asking his parents. And they became lovers. They wandered into the cemetery and there, on the fresh grass of April, just beside the church . . . Anyway, what did she have left to preserve, and why? She conceived from their very first time. She told Sashko, and all he said was:
“
How do I know who else you
’
ve been running around with?
”